The Lost King of France

Continued (page 7 of 7)

The King did not loiter. He moved with purpose—busily. He breathed heavily, exposed to the heat as he was. That constriction again, across the chest, that queer anger. He smiled broadly when he bumped into colleagues, but he was not exactly one to make idle chitchat—and his expression returned to seriousness and slight agitation after passing.

“And how is the King of France today?” said one friend, making a loud show of shaking his hand. The two exchanged pleasantries, and when they broke off the King was almost buoyant.

So they did love him—right? It was a relief to live in the lacuna between this first question and the one that followed: Or did they?

The King came upon a courtroom where an old man stood in threadbare clothes, slouched in the defendant’s box. The judge appeared displeased by the villain, but it was hard to imagine the defendant, looking frail and almost kindly as he did there, killing anyone. Watching from the back of the room for a moment, the King emitted a low sound—half-grunt, half-complaint. Did he pity the old man? Had he seen enough to know that beneath the broken veneer this toady varlet was a cold-blooded killer? That his brokenness was an act?

The King’s eyebrows flared. He stopped to wipe his brow, and then he was swept up among the others dressed exactly as he was, just another in the crowd. All of his history—his name, his blood—had rendered him as common as the next commoner. And yet it was the displeasure flickering on his face that separated him from them. Perhaps he saw the old man, the convict, as lucky—at least he was receiving justice. Even his jail cell might have been easier to accept, after having been recognized and judged. But the King—the King stood before time, before the great cosmic flow of history, and worse than being unjudged, he’d been completely forgotten.

His jail cell was invisibility. His destiny was inaction (still waiting). His life, he now acknowledged, was nothing but “a tragedy.” Perhaps it’s fair to say that any true king would have preferred the guillotine to nonexistence, if he weren’t sustained by the dream-delusion of what could be: visions of oneself ascending in ermine to the throne, to the loving cheers of his subjects, jeweled scepter flashing. But, dear friend, how likely is such an outcome even for the man who has rightful claim—or who simply desires it more than any other?

When the King returned to his walled compound, he passed his servants again in the driveway without paying them any mind. And they kept up their conversation this time, paying him none, either.